The Public Affairs Section of the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade [hereafter “PAS”] announces this funding opportunity to strengthen or establish academic partnerships between Serbian and American institutions of higher learning. Please carefully follow all instructions in the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO).
PAS Belgrade welcomes applications creating partnership that involve the students and professors of any of Serbia’s public universities.
Program Objectives
The university partnership proposal should support the U.S. Embassy’s overall objectives in Serbia. Broadly speaking, we are trying to assist the Serbian people to: strengthen democracy, rule of law, and the protection human rights; help fight brain drain and advance the country’s further economic development; promote regional stability and cooperation; cooperate with international partners to combat crime, terrorism, human trafficking, and other global challenges; and make further progress towards Serbia’s accession into the European Union. We also strive to explain U.S. policies, culture, society, and values to Serbian audiences and deepen ties between our two countries and our two peoples.
ACADEMIC EXCHANGE: A university partnership between Serbian and U.S. institutions of higher learning could involve in-person and/or virtual exchanges involving students, faculty, and/or administrators.
Please see the NOFO for the list of eligible academic fields.
The main goal(s) of an academic exchange could be to provide Serbian students and their professors:
- American academic perspectives on shared areas of interest and lessons learned from the American experience in the focus subject(s);
- insights into current research and academic debates in the U.S. on the focus subject;
- the chance to engage in discussions and debate with their American counterparts; and/or
- the opportunity to experience and assess teaching methodologies used in American university classrooms.
On the flip side, the American participants would obviously have the opportunity to learn a great deal from their Serbian counterparts. This partnership program will broaden their perspectives. provide them with new insights, and allow them to learn firsthand from Serbian academics about their research projects. This academic exchange would greatly enrich U.S. universities as well.
OTHER POTENTIAL ACTIVITIES: A university partnership project could also include one or more of the following activities: curriculum development; needs assessments; joint online courses; joint research projects; development of a joint degree program; development of a study abroad program; sharing of best teaching practices and instructional methods; support for participation in academic conferences or student competitions (e.g., moot court, Model U.S. Congress, Model United Nations); establishing an American Studies course or academic program; and/or setting up a center focused on American Studies.
ADDITIONAL OBJECTIVES: No matter which menu of activities are in the proposal, the university partnership ideally would further strengthen Serbian academic institutions and methods of instruction.
Directly or indirectly, PAS hopes that this project will assist thoughtful academics at Serbian universities to better prepare their students for further study, for future employment, and to take up the responsibility to be well-informed citizens.
Eligible Applicants
The following organizations are eligible to apply:
- public universities in the Republic of Serbia;
- accredited U.S. universities (public or private);
- non-profit educational foundations legally registered in the United States with the demonstrated capacity to fulfill the objectives outlined in this NOFO, i.e., to set up one or more university partnership programs.
Information Session
PAS will hold an information session on Friday, June 26,2020 (time TBD) to discuss this university partnership funding opportunity and to answer questions from potential applicants. Please contact PAS at BelgradePASUniv@state.gov for details.
Application and Submission
Required application forms are available on the right hand side of this page. Please carefully follow all the instructions in the University Partnership NOFO FY2020 document.
Please follow all instructions below carefully. Proposals that do not meet the requirements of this announcement or fail to comply with the stated requirements will be considered technically ineligible and will not be considered for funding.
Please ensure that: all documents are in English; the proposal clearly addresses the goals and objectives of this funding opportunity; all budget items are in U.S. dollars.
Before You Submit Your Application
- Read through the above guidelines one more time to make sure you understand what is required and confirm that your project meets the program’s intent.
- Carefully review the application to make sure it is complete and free of errors. Applications which do not include the required information or do not comply with the requirements of the Program guidelines will be considered technically ineligible and will not be reviewed by the review panel.
- Make sure the application is neatly typed and easy to read in English. (Perfect English is not required but the proposal must be understandable to an English speaker.)
- Ask someone who does not know anything about your project to read your proposal to determine if it is understandable. Remember that the members of the review committee will not know anything about your proposal until they read it. If they cannot understand what you plan to do simply by reading the application, chances are it will not be approved.
- Ask someone with experience applying for grants to look at the application and provide advice on how to improve your application.
Application Deadline
Applications are due no later than midnight on July 20, 2020. Please submit proposals to the Public Affairs Section, U.S. Embassy in Belgrade, via email to BelgradePASUniv@state.gov.
If we do not receive a complete project proposal at the above address by the deadline, it will be considered technically ineligible and will not be considered for funding.
As a backup, we strongly recommend that you also send a paper copy via post (postmarked before the deadline) to the following address:
University Partnership Program
Public Affairs Section (PAS)
U.S. Embassy
Bulevar Kneza Aleksandra Karadjordjevica 92
11040 Belgrade